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Kafka's Metamorphosis

1673 Words7 Pages

Kafka used metamorphosis as a metaphor for the alienation within Gregor Samsa in his novel The Metamorphosis. The protagonist Gregor Samsa awakens from his dream and realized he has transformed into an insect. Through the elucidated the reactions of people related to Gregor, Kafka demonstrated the reason of Gregor’s self-alienation from the society and his humanity. The inducement of Gregor’s alienation are mainly from work and family, his prolonged solitude and isolation changes himself unconsciously and caused the dramatic metamorphosis. Kafka stressed on Gregor’s estrangement of his identity by estranging his familiar place, familiar speech, familiar body and familiar identity. The estrangement caused himself and the people around him to …show more content…

To begin with Gregor fragmented role in the family caused his alienation. Gregor not only have to pay the rent and expenditure of his family, he also “to pay off parents’ debt” (30) that his father made 5 years ago. Gregor was devoted easing his family burden and “late earned so much money that he was in a position to bear expenses of the entire family, expenses which he did bear” (49) He became the only one who have the ability to earn money and identify himself as the breadwinner in the family. Gregor seemed to be the authority in the family since he has to money power yet the situation is the opposite. As Gregor is so keen on gaining money and consider his career as a travel salesmen, he lost the bond and connection with his family. Gregor uses the “train connection, the poor, irregular meals, human contact that is always changing, never lasting, never approaching warmth,” (1) as an excuse to not communicate with his family. He “locks all the door at home overnight” (32) to isolate himself from his family. This self-isolation maybe cause by his ability to work and his family incapacity to work. His habit of locking doors, this shows the untrusted towards his family. Gregor’s self-isolation triggered estrangement of his identity in his family and gradually lost it during his

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